Taliban said to be talking surrender

Pentagon doubts Omar among 1,500

WASHINGTON — Negotiations were under way Wednesday for the surrender of as many as 1,500 Taliban troops holed up in the mountains of southern Afghanistan, but the Pentagon doubted that those talks involved the war's second most wanted man and the figure those troops were protecting: ousted Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Afghan officials also confirmed that a U.S. air strike last week killed Taliban intelligence chief Qari Ahmadullah, one of the Taliban leaders sought by the U.S. and the highest-ranking Taliban official known killed in the three-month military campaign.

Amassed around what is believed to be Omar's hideout in Baghran, Afghan troops talked to village tribal leaders about the surrender of the Taliban fighters and of Omar himself, said Jamal Khan, an anti-Taliban commander.

Afghan officials said Taliban soldiers were expected to hand over weapons and vehicles by the end of the week.

But Pentagon leaders said they were skeptical that Omar would freely surrender. Instead they are relying on U.S. commandos working with Afghan troops to hunt down the Taliban leader and Al Qaeda terrorist network leader Osama bin Laden. Afghan officials said U.S. troops had teamed with Afghan troops searching for Omar near Baghran, although U.S. military officials would not confirm that.

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said the U.S. military has received assurances from Afghan leaders that if they capture Omar first, they will turn him over to the U.S.

"It has been made very clear that we expect to have control of him," Clarke said Wednesday in Washington.

The U.S. is wary of missing a second opportunity to capture or kill Omar, accused by the U.S. of using the Taliban regime to shelter bin Laden and his terrorist activities. On Dec. 7, anti-Taliban forces seized control of Kandahar, Omar's home base, and ended the Taliban's five-year reign in Afghanistan. Omar, who was believed to be in Kandahar at the time, eluded Afghan and U.S. forces.

Afghan leaders say they believe Omar is hiding in or near Baghran, a mountain village about 100 miles northwest of Kandahar, but they have not indicated that they know his precise location.

Afghan leaders have been negotiating with Baghran's loya jirga, a council of village tribal leaders.

"We are still in contact with the people there to find a way to end this issue peacefully," said Haji Gullalai, Kandahar's intelligence chief.

The trail for bin Laden, meanwhile, has grown cold. Afghan and U.S. Special Forces troops have combed through what was believed to be bin Laden's last redoubt, the vast network of caves amid the White Mountains in the Tora Bora region south of Jalalabad. So far, the cave-by-cave search has produced intelligence material but no sign of bin Laden.

On Wednesday, the U.S. commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force said bin Laden isn't likely to be found in the Tora Bora region.

U.S. teams scouring those caves did not encounter the elaborate network of tunnels associated with bin Laden and the Tora Bora region, Mulholland said. Not every cave has been checked, he said.

Afghan officials confirmed, meanwhile, that Ahmadullah, high on the Pentagon's list of Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders, was killed during a U.S. air strike in Afghanistan's Paktia province Dec. 27.

U.S. warplanes attacked the house where Ahmadullah was staying. He was killed as he was trying to flee on a motorcycle, said Raz Mohammed Khan Lunai, an Intelligence Ministry aide for Afghanistan's interim government. Lunai said he saw Ahmadullah's burial Monday.

In Kandahar, soldiers with the Army's 101st Airborne Division began arriving at the U.S. base there to replace the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, whose members are returning to the USS Peleliu.

About 200 soldiers arrived Wednesday, the vanguard of a force expected to exceed 1,000. The division's troops will continue combat operations against any remaining pockets of Taliban or Al Qaeda resistance, guard prisoners, and secure the base's airfield for military and relief shipments. The Marines are trained and equipped for 30-day missions, while the 101st Airborne Division troops are geared for a longer deployment.

A 29-hour mission by the Marines to comb through a Taliban-Al Qaeda compound near Baghran yielded little--a small number of weapons and documents belonging to Al Qaeda, U.S. military officials said. About 200 Marines participated in the search, which ended early Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the number of detainees in U.S. custody rose to 221, most of them suspected Taliban or Al Qaeda members.

Of those, 200 are at the detention center in Kandahar; eight, including American John Walker, are aboard the Marine amphibious assault ship USS Bataan; a dozen are at Bagram airfield north of Kabul; and one is at Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan.

In Washington, an Afghan spokesman said interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai was expected to visit Washington, the first visit by an Afghan head of state since the Kennedy administration.

"Mr. Karzai wants to say thank you to the American people for its support, and to the administration and Congress," said Afghan government spokesman Haron Amin. "It is the first visit in such a long time, and it will signify a restoration of the formal and strong relations the two countries used to have."